Peacemaking

Start paying for war - The Washington Post

2011-03-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

Start paying for war - The Washington Post

Buying cool new shoes with a credit card may not be all that wise, especially if you don't pay the card off every month, but at least you have the shoes while you are paying them off. Tomahawk missiles are different.The Navy stocks up on missiles over time, paying for them out of current budget. This means that a president can use Tomahawks without any impact on current spending. Replacing the inventory will be done over time, maybe even by a later administration. Sending troops, on the other hand, is like buying shoes with a credit card. By the time you have to pay the bill you already know whether buying the shoes was a good idea or not, but you have to pay even if the shoes don't fit.

The intervention in Libya takes advantage of these economic facts of life. The submarines with Tomahawks are already loitering around the Mediterranean. The missiles were paid for by one of the presidents Bush, or maybe even Reagan.Firing off 122 of the missiles has no current financial impact.

Guarding a no-fly zone does cost current dollars. The fuel and additional spare parts required by an increase in flight time come out of the current budget. Most costly of all, in current budget terms, is sending ground troops. US troops in Afghanistan cost about $1 million each per year.

Ezra Klein suggests that pay-as-you-go war would be better. If I want to fire a missile, I must first add revenue or cut some other expense to pay for it. This sounds reasonable to me. Lots of planning had to go into firing those Tomahawks at Libya. There's no reason that White House staff couldn't also be identifying the new revenue sources or cuts necessary to pay for them at the same time. To make it more true to life a president sending troops into harm's way should also budget the death benefits and medical care necessary for those who are injured and pay that amount out of current income. The military plans ahead to preposition body bags, so prepositioning the money necessary to fill them shouldn't be too difficult.

What military operation could survive having to do a cost-benefit analysis prior to engaging in it? Who would have thought that invading Afghanistan and then Iraq was a good idea if they had to pay for it up front? The National Priorities Project estimates the cost of wars since 2001 at $1.171 trillion. There are about 311 million Americans. That mans each American has paid something like $376 per year for the last ten years just for those wars. The Tax Policy Center says 47% pay no income tax, so double the amount if you are someone who does pay. This means the bill for a tax paying family of four has been $3,008 a year for the last ten years just for these wars.

Pay as you go wars would be a good way to help presidents think before they launch.

Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cuts

2011-03-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cuts

This chart has been making the rounds under various headings generally labeled "class warfare." It compares the cost of federal social programs at risk of being cut with some of the latest tax breaks for the wealthy. The reasonable take-away from the chart is that by eliminating these tax cuts we could pay for the social programs. The chart includes early childhood prorgams, low income housing programs, supplemental nutrition (WIC), teacher traing and after school programs, job training for unemployed and new workers, low income home energy assistance, community health centers, legal services for the poor and family planning services. The total tab for all these programs is $44 billion.

Assuming that these are all good programs that offer excellent bang for the buck, I am left with a nagging question: why are these federal government programs in the first place?

At best the federal government adds another layer of bureaucracy to the distribution of the money. At worst it demands that money be spent in ways that local people disagree with. Caring for people who are unable to care for themselves is an inherently local task. No one in Washington, DC can hand food to someone in Fresno. Unfortunately, paying for the care may well be beyond the ability of localities that need it most. Larger clusters of people need to be organized to provide assistance. This means that regional or even state-wide organizations may need to help hard hit areas. Some events, like the gulf oil spill, may even require coordination at the national level.

None of the programs in the infographic are designed to provide disaster assistance. They are for chronic problems that must be sustainably addressed at the local level. Local agencies spend much energy chasing the next federal grant and never know whether the staff will have jobs at the end of the current grant. This cycle has implications of many kinds for local organizations, none of them good for those in need.

Let the federal government work with matters that require interstate coordination, and let local people manage local needs with money that would otherwise go to federal coffers. Fresno's per capita share of the $44 billion is about $70 million. Maybe some of the money would even get to groups doing the best work, instead of the best grant writing.

Top Resources for Finding Scholarships/Fellowships in Conflict Resolution and Related Fields - Peace and Collaborative Development Network

2011-01-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Top Resources for Finding Scholarships/Fellowships in Conflict Resolution and Related Fields - Peace and Collaborative Development Network

Craig Zelizer has been working at education in conflict and peacemaking for a long time now. This blog post gathers together what he has learned about funding your education.

Hospira to Stop Making Lethal-Injection Drug - WSJ.com

2011-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hospira to Stop Making Lethal-Injection Drug - WSJ.com

Say what you will about pharmaceutical companies, they get that being associated with the death penalty is a bad thing. 105 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or practice. The United States is one of the few places where one can find an active pro-death penalty group. This is a big change in the last fifty years.

There are many reasons proposed for this shift in international public opinion. Many of the reasons behind this shift can be explored at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/. In some countries the death penalty was abolished as part of undoing a history of oppression. When a new order comes to power vestiges of the old order are swept away. Others have realized that killing people who kill people does not teach that we shouldn't kill people. In this new age of DNA evidence we are also discovering that innocent people get convicted more often than was once thought.

The economic argument that the death penalty saves money has long been untrue in the US. Even when executions are being done it takes many years for an individual to be executed. California is spending over $100 million a year to house over 700 death row inmates in single cells. Interestingly, there are about as many people on death row in California as have ever been executed in California.

As one US Supreme Court justice famously said, "death is different." It is permanent. There is no undo button. When you add years of incarceration with a death sentence hanging over the inmate's head it is also uniquely brutal. While some would argue that the brutality is appropriate, that group keeps shrinking as a proportion of the population.

Some ask why the death penalty is a big deal to anyone, given the number of violent deaths we hear about every day, and the American penchant for military adventures. More Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years than are on death row (3,291 in 2009). The difference is in the individualized premeditation of the death penalty. Soldiers are killed in war zones, but it isn't personal. Soldiers kill in war zones, but they rarely set out to kill the individuals they end up killing. The death penalty requires a long, individualized process of officially deciding to kill a particular person. That makes it more horrifying.

Isn't it time for the US to get with the trajectory of human development?

September 11, 2006

2010-09-11T09:33:00.001-07:00

I wrote the following post on September 11, 2006. How has the world changed since then?

September 11, 2006

On September 11, 2001 at 9:00 EST I was on an airplane over the South China Sea. We landed in Singapore knowing nothing of what had happened in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. I happened to be first off the plane and walked down a long corridor with soldiers in black uniforms standing shoulder to shoulder on both sides holding stubby machine guns. Having flown into

Singapore

many times, I knew something was up, but not what. it was until I turned on CNN in my hotel room. The replay of the towers falling went on and on.

The next day I was scheduled to head home to Java so went to the departure area and discovered that only one flight would leave Singapore that day, my flight to Jakarta. At every point in my journey everyone I encountered expressed sympathy. Leaving Jakarta for my home in Yogyakarta even the guards at the metal detector went out of their way to say how sorry they were. A month later, on Canadian Thanksgiving, the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan. The local authorities took over the house next door to give us 24 hour police protection.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 events. As luck would have it, I will be on an airplane again, this time headed from California to Texas for a meeting with legislators on restorative justice. The feelings this trip engenders surprise me. The fact that causing an event on the 5^th anniversary is a terrorist dream is inescapable, but what it means to me is that I probably can’t take anything on the plane, and that is foremost in my mind. I’m thinking of wearing a t-shirt, gym shorts and flip-flops, carrying my medications in a Ziploc bag.

Airport passenger security as a safety measure is a joke, since all the low-paid workers on the ramp can easily bring in anything a terrorist wants and most checked cargo and baggage is not screened. I know I will be subjected to search in an effort to make me think the government can keep me safe. That is ridiculous. I can’t take my Swiss Army keychain knife with its 1 ½ inch blade onto the plane, but I can take my five inch stainless steel Parker pen, which is a real weapon and can do a tracheotomy in an emergency. I am no safer flying on 9-11-06 than I was on 9-11-01, but I am much inconvenienced as a political ploy. That Americans put up with this is depressing.

I have walked through the Khyber Pass gate from Pakistan into Afghanistan where no checking of cargo is done as people and trucks flow both ways. The free movement of dangerous things is part of life these days. Anyone who suggests differently is either uninformed or a liar. When I flew to California from Indonesia in December 2001 I was met at LAX by National Guardsmen toting automatic weapons. I’m sure that was a real deterrent to terrorists willing to die to wreak havoc, and that I was much less safe because of their presence.

Learning to live with IEDs

2010-07-31T14:44:00.000-07:00

War frustrates Clovis soldier's father - fresnobee.com

On the day he buries his son killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) in Afghanistan a grieving father lashes out at a government that does not give its soldiers adequate protection from such threats. The nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has made IEDs the weapon of choice for those who oppose foreign intervention. Soldiers cannot protect themselves from these threats as well as they can protect themselves from snipers since the concussive force of a bomb reaches inside armored vehicles.

The current issue of Wired magazine has an excellent article on the intricacies of IED defense http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_roadside_bombs/. It describes in detail why efforts to protect troops from the threat may reduce the number of casualties, but can never eliminate them. Adding armor to vehicles results in bigger bombs being used. Finding ways to fool triggering mechanisms is quickly countered. Americans have to protect themselves against every method known since the bomb makers can use anything they have ever used. A single device made in a kitchen can tie up billions of dollars of hardware seeking to protect soldiers from the new innovation, even if it is never used again.

The threat of IEDs has grown enormously in Afghanistan. One result of the Wikileaks documents is that we now know the GPS coordinates and other info on every IED in the 2004-2009 period. This information has been put on an animated map available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlfQQnH6_Cc. One can easily see the increase in activity and where the activity takes place. The hockey stick graph of frequency is also easily visualized. Since 2007 around 60% of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan have been killed by an IED.

The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center has tracked over 178,000 cases of traumatic brain injury since 2000. Of these about 5,000 were of the severe or penetrating variety that results in long-term disability. These are part of the 32,000 US troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. Over 5,600 have been killed. The ratio of wounded to killed is about the same as in the Vietnam War, with one tenth the numbers so far.

Those who see their children volunteer to enter the Afghan civil war to protect the interests of the US government are rightly concerned about the threat IEDs pose. Those who survive such an attack may still have brain injuries that never heal, placing their families in the position of having to care for the disabled service member for life. Those who approve of their child's choice to enter the military may not have given thought to this risk. This risk also means that entering the military should not be seen as an individual choice. The family members who will bear the burden posed by a disabled veteran ought to have a voice in choosing to take the risk. The signature injury of the Vietnam War was amputation due to the extensive use of land mines. The signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is traumatic brain injury caused by IEDs.

Americans need to give thought to the way the continuing burdens of these wars are allocated. The Veterans Administration does provide services to wounded veterans, but a large burden is shouldered by their families without compensation. This is a hidden cost of war. Is it appropriate for families to be expected to provide ongoing care without remuneration? If war can only find support if its true costs are hidden, is it time to reconsider how the country decides whether or not to send the military outside our borders?

Ads on a blog

2010-07-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

A short while back I agreed to let Google put ads on this blog. The idea is for them to match the blog content and so on. After a few really egregious ads I have withdrawn permission. You will still see the small text ads between posts, that being the price of admission. Thanks for your patience.

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: Non-Violent Aid and Advice To Terrorist Groups Illegal Says Supreme Court | Before It's News

2010-06-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: Non-Violent Aid and Advice To Terrorist Groups Illegal Says Supreme Court

Those of us who work in the peacemaking field find ourselves working with people in conflict. Some of these people have done violent things in an effort to press their agenda. Should we refuse to work with anyone who has used violence at some time in the past? The Supreme Court says we had better refuse.

This case was brought to get an interpretation of the terms “knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” something that is illegal under 18 U. S. C. §2339B(a)(1). A group is given the terrorist designation by the Secretary of State. Once you are on the list US citizens are forbidden to give you material support. The Humanitarian Law Project wanted to find out whether its proposed activities would be illegal.

The group wanted to provide training in the use of international law to resolve disputes peacefully; how to petition the United Nations and other representative bodies for relief; and they wanted to engage in political advocacy on behalf of Kurds living in Turkey and Tamils living in Sri Lanka. Chief Justice Roberts writing for the 6-3 majority stated the holding of the court: "The material-support statute, §2339B, is constitutional as appliedto the particular forms of support that plaintiffs seek to provide to foreign terrorist organizations."

Robert Benjamin writing on Mediate.com wonders if this development isn't actually positive. "For the teaching and training of negotiation and mediation to be criminalized must mean the skill sets have become sufficiently recognized as potent and sufficiently effective to be a threat." I suppose that can be seen as a measure of success. When I began working in the field 25 years ago people didn't know what it was. Now it's so good it's dangerous.

Ten years ago I was working in Indonesia with people who weren't on the side of the government, and with people who had been involved in violence of various types as that country moved from dictatorship toward democracy. The focus of the work was helping people learn to effectively use nonviolent conflict resolution techniques. We had considerable success with these efforts and many were able to find ways to work within the emerging system of governance. If those groups had been on the Secretary of State's list I would have been breaking the law.

The Supreme Court doesn't decide whether or not a law is good. It's job is to determine whether or not it is constitutional. Outlawing aid to terrorists seems like a good idea, until the law prevents aid to groups trying to leave terrorism behind. This law is too blunt an instrument for today's asymmetric threats. Congress needs to do the careful work of defining what aids terrorists to do harm and what keeps us safe by helping them find less harmful ways of working toward their goals. After all, what we call founding fathers the British called terrorists.

Men in Child Tattoo Case Reach Plea Deal - KGPE CBS47 News, Sports & Weather for the Central Valley

2010-06-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Men in Child Tattoo Case Reach Plea Deal - KGPE CBS47 News, Sports & Weather for the Central Valley

My prediction has come true. This report comes on the same day that the DA finds out she has to lay off 11 deputy DAs. The large amount of treasure devoted to this case does make the department look overstaffed.

Fresno men who tattooed boy not guilty of mayhem - Top Stories - fresnobee.com

2010-06-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Fresno men who tattooed boy not guilty of mayhem - Top Stories - fresnobee.com

Jury nullification strikes again. The boy's father had a friend tattoo a small dog paw on the child's waist. This was understood to be a sign of the Bulldog Gang. The DA decided to charge the pair with aggravated mayhem, a crime that carries the possibility of life in prison.

No matter what one thinks of gangs, tattoos or fathers who make really bad choices, life in prison for tattooing a small dog paw print in a place usually covered by clothing goes too far. Perhaps the DA was focused on getting a gang member off the streets for a long time, and missed how silly it looked to compare a small tattoo to murder.

Jury nullification is the traditional doctrine that allows juries to ignore the law when the law is either preposterous or malign. The US jury system was originally created to protect citizens from oppression by the ruling class. It worked in this case. The jury acquitted on aggravated mayhem and couldn't agree on any lesser offense. The DA can try again on the lesser offenses. My guess is that there will be a plea to something much less and that will end the matter.

It is normal for prosecutors to over charge in hopes of getting a plea to a lesser charge. The trick is not to insult a jury by charging way too high. Maybe next time.

MWR : Some shocked by Landis' guilt

2010-05-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Mennonite Weekly Review : Some shocked by Landis' guilt

Mennonites don't often have international sports celebrities rising from their midst, so it was exciting to have Floyd Landis, who was raised Mennonite, win the Tour de France. Like most things that seem too good to be true, this victory wasn't, and it was snatched away, mired in a doping scandal.

The story would usually end there, but Floyd played the Mennonite card. Mennonites have earned a reputation for honesty, even when it is costly. So when Floyd said he was not guilty, people rose to his defense. Now, four years and many donated dollars of defense later, he admits lying to his family and supporters. Perhaps not surprisingly he admits his guilt in emails sent to others, not by facing the people he betrayed. These emails attempt to justify his actions by implicating other athletes. These accusations will keep the story alive for a while longer.

I have learned that when we get defensive it is usually because we have done something indefensible. Floyd has destroyed his own reputation, and he is entitled to do that. The sadder part of the story is how he dragged down a lot of good people with him. What needs to happen now?

We know from our experience with victims and offenders that there is a necessary process for restoration. The first step is a commitment to be constructive. Trying to make things right without this commitment is a good way to make things worse. One of the reasons it is difficult to work at reconciliation without help is this initial step. Someone will probably need to help you process your commitment to make sure it is not only real, but comes through in your words and behavior.

Once the commitment to be constructive is in place the offender and the offended have three steps to take. The first is to recognize the injustices experienced by each. While Floyd certainly gets to acknowledge his lying, stealing and cheating, it may also be that the people he harmed asked more of him than was reasonable. By supporting his claims of innocence in the face of strong evidence to the contrary they pushed him to continue the charade, making everything worse. When people wrong us it is normal to discover that at some time we did something to either bring it on or make it worse.

The second step, after everyone has been able to tell their story and know that it has been heard, is to figure out what needs to be done to make things right. This may be just an apology, but it can often include restitution. If I lie to you and you give me money because of the lie, I probably need to pay you back. Sometimes it is clear that both parties knew better and should share the burden. Whatever it takes, this step needs to be done well.

The third step is usually easy. All it requires is being clear about the future. How will we interact going forward? How will we avoid having the same thing happen again?

As these agreements are made and kept, trust grows. That allows reconciliation to happen over time. This model, described by Ron Claassen at length at http://peace.fresno.edu/docs/model.shtml, is the one used by Fresno's Victim Offender Reconciliation Program. I have used it for every kind of dispute.

Floyd Landis and his family, friends, former teammates and supporters have a way out. I hope they can make use of it.

Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy | Epicenter�| Wired.com

2010-04-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy | Epicenter�| Wired.com

I spend a lot of time on Facebook, and don't play any of the games. The organizations I webmaster for all have Facebook pages, and many of my news and information sources do too. Social media require steady upkeep, so Facebook is always open in one of my browser tabs.

The new Facebook "like" button became available to web developers earlier in April. It allows a person to click "like" on a web page rather than going to the page's Facebook site. The button then displays the photos of people who like the page. That's what the latest Facebook privacy hullabaloo is about. Well I added the button to most of my main site pages the day the feature came out. (check http://disciplinethatrestores.org for an example) By the end of the first week 50,000 companies had done the same.

Facebookers have the ability to block this feature so that they are counted as a liker on the button but their picture doesn't show. That news was spread quickly by Facebook and lots of other folks, and many did block it. I decided to block individual applications rather than doing a blanket block.

Privacy on the web is a relative thing. It takes very little effort to find most details about me via Google. Part of the reason is that I have a large web presence, but it has more to do with all the organizations I belong to making bits of their databases public. Zuckerberg is right: the privacy-on-the-web ship has sailed.

I periodically search with Google for my Social Security number, home phone, credit card numbers and other things that shouldn't be out there for a public search. So far so good--meaning that you have to pay to get some of those things. I also restrict most of my Facebook posts to friends only. Of course that doesn't prevent someone from reposting, forwarding, etc. If you don't want people to find something on the web, don't put it there.

Facebook is doing its best to integrate all things web, and they are making good progress. It has already gotten to the point that I am annoyed when someone isn't recognizably on Facebook. I like to see who called me before I return a call to a stranger. All those people with a Facebook profile photo of their cat, or a Facebook page name that isn't their real name interfere with my desire to find out about them. The same goes for my students in online classes.

I'm guessing that people who don't live like the Unabomber aren't going to have much luck keeping personal information private. I will watch what I put online to try keeping those few things that really matter safe, but I'll also keep checking my credit card statements closely. We'll see how that works out.

New Zealand Ploughshares activists win unexpected “not guilty” verdict / Waging Nonviolence

2010-03-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

In my book The Christian and Jury Duty I discuss both John Howard Yoder's concept of revolutionary subordinationism, in which one does an unlawful action for the sake of conscience fully expecting to receive the consequences, and jury nullification, the legal doctrine by which a jury refuses to convict even though the defendant admits guilt. Both were at work in New Zealand in the case reported below.

New Zealand Ploughshares activists win unexpected “not guilty” verdict / Waging Nonviolence

These protesters performed a nonviolent direct action to call attention to New Zealand's participation in a secret electronic surveillance network. This network is one source of intelligence which makes it possible for drones to target people in their homes. Their action did not prevent the secret base from functioning, but made its existence more difficult politically.

Juries in the English common law tradition followed by New Zealand and the United States are free to acquit guilty people when they believe the law under which they are being prosecuted is wrong, or is being misused. It is an important check on the power of prosecutors to persecute.

More on flotation

2010-03-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

The snowshoes arrived, and so did lots more snow in the mountains, so yesterday we went up to Kings Canyon National Park to see whether we had a winner or not. The road was clear, the sky was clear enough, and we got to Grant Grove with no hassles.

It took a bit of figuring out, but the snowshoes went on as designed, and we were off. We walked out into the meadow behind the restaurant onto several feet of pristine snow. The big shoes sank into the snow maybe 3 inches and worked as advertised. The binding is articulated so you use as normal a walking motion as one would expect with life rafts on your feet. My wife and I both sank into the snow about the same distance and neither of us had any trouble to speak of. The built-in crampons kept us from sliding when going up or down hills and balance was no problem.

We walked across the meadow and into the campground on the other side. I was noticing that this activity used some leg muscles that are different from my usual activities. Then we came across a snowshoe trail broken by others and found out why it's nice to go in groups. We had been breaking trail all the way across the meadow, and that is a lot more work than following a broken trail.

We quit after an hour, figuring it was best not to overdo on our first foray. It was a successful excursion. Now we are planning the next, longer trek. More snow is predicted this week. I plan to float across the top. You can see more photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=196550&id=656665475&l=b80217909b

Flotation

2010-02-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

We go cross-country skiing two or three times a year, usually up in one of the national parks. It is a beautiful way to see a beautiful place and get some exercise while we are at it. The problem is that we never took lessons, so our abilities peaked about the second time we went 35 years ago.

Going up or on the flat is fine, but coming down can be scary. On steep or icy downhills I pretty much aim for something soft and plan to crash there. As I’ve gotten older all this crashing became less and less enchanting. Getting untangled and ready to go again after you fall gets harder. So we decided it might be a good idea to try snowshoeing instead. You get to go places and see things you couldn’t otherwise and get some exercise, just like skiing, without all the crashing.

Renting snowshoes to try them out was an eye-opening experience. Getting the right ones for my wife was no problem, and they worked well for her. I, on the other hand, am the size of a typical NFL offensive lineman. She needs a 21” x 8” shoe while I need a 36” x 10” one, and that wouldn’t be enough in deep powder. Our first foray was on several feet of fresh snow with much smaller rented shoes. While I didn’t sink all the way to my crotch, pulling the shoe out made it similar in effort.

Finding big snowshoes in February is tough. The few pair that stores get are gone by then and no one rents them. Looking online one finds few models that get big enough, and some of them have bindings that fit “up to a man’s size 13 boot.” I have a pair of 14s and a pair of 15s. It began to look as though the snow would melt before I had a chance to try snowshoeing with the proper equipment.

My wife persevered through the various local and online shops. We found a local shoe with the same binding as its bigger cousin and tried my most compact boots in it. Success! So now we knew we could order the right size shoe in that brand. Even that turned out to be a problem, but we found a pair and they are on their way. They were even priced at end of season closeout prices with free shipping.

Soon we will be able to try mushing through the woods. What a lot of trouble for what should be a peaceful experience! Now if they just made silent plug-in snowmobiles all would be perfect.

Do armed citizens deter crime?

2010-01-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen came out in favor of the Sheriff’s policy of freely granting concealed weapon permits to qualified citizens in his piece published December 10, 2009. The incident that triggered his column was the murder of a delivery truck driver who was shot while doing his early morning rounds.

These tragedies always raise the question of what could have prevented them. Mr. McEwen suggests that more armed citizens of good character could deter at least some of these crimes. Others have the same thought, airline pilots included, so it is worth examining the research available to see if there is a correlation between more guns in the hands of good people and less violent crime.

In the interests of full disclosure, I grew up with guns and am a pretty good shot. As a Vietnam-era Air Force officer I qualified with a sidearm, putting fifty shots in an area the size of my fist. I have also worked around the world in places where order has broken down and have eaten dinner with people carrying automatic weapons.

The goal of research in this area of inquiry is to compare violent crime rates in areas with lots of guns and areas with few guns to see if there are differences. Brandon S. Centerwall did a study of homicide rates from 1976-80 in adjoining states and Canadian provinces. The provinces had one tenth as many handguns per capita as the states. Centerwall states: “No consistent differences were observed; criminal homicide rates were sometimes higher in the Canadian province, and sometimes higher in the adjoining US state.”

Mauser and Kates studied international data and summed up their study in 2006: “Our conclusion from the available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the availability of any particular one of the world’s myriad deadly instrument being irrelevant.”

Lott and Mustard examined a large data set of all US counties and determined that easing carry laws to put more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens did decrease violent crime. These findings were widely celebrated and resulted in passage of carry laws in a number of states.

Ayres and Donohue examined Lott and Mustard’s data set and added in data from states where eased concealed weapons rules made firearms more common. Their conclusion published in the 2003 Stanford Law Review was: “We conclude that Lott and Mustard have made an important scholarly contribution in establishing that these laws have not led to the massive bloodbath of death and injury that some of their opponents feared. On the other hand, we find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile.”

Scholars continue to study this issue which has large implications for our society. At present there are studies which seem to show less crime where citizens are armed, but these results do not hold up well to scrutiny. Those places which freely grant concealed weapons permits are the test beds where theories meet data. Fresno, with ten percent of the state’s concealed carry permits, is one of those test beds.

The practical question is whether the citizens of Fresno are better off being a test bed for the proposition that more armed citizens deter crime. Ayres and Donohue go on to state that: “While we do not want to overstate the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from the extremely variable results emerging from the statistical analysis, if anything, there is stronger evidence for the conclusion that these laws increase crime than there is for the conclusion that they decrease it.”

Social experiments are a necessary part of governing any society. The only way to find out whether a theory works is to try it. The more data you have from places that have already tested the theory the better your decision whether or not to try it yourself. Where the test results are as equivocal as they are in the area of arming private citizens, how does one decide which path to follow? Scholars will be glad to receive the data from the Fresno experiment.

(a version of this blog post was published by Fresno Pacific University as part of its Scholars Speak series of faculty writing in January 2010)

Hacking Google

2010-01-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

Who hacked Google? Gmail accounts were the targets, as far as public press releases show. Google says the hackers were Chinese, as does the US government. China responds that its government had nothing to do with it, and how dare you say it did?

We only know that Google was hacked because it says so. Google also says that Chinese dissidents were the ones targeted. Let's assume that they are telling the truth as far as they know it. Do governments have teams of computer hackers busily preparing for cyber-war and testing their abilities in the meantime? One assumes that they do, and Americans would be dismayed to learn that their government wasn't doing just that. The way you learn to break into computer networks is by breaking into computer networks, the tougher the better.

Internet security companies are also busily probing for security holes, as are fascinated amateurs, professional sleuths and criminal gangs. The complexity of modern software and the worldwide distribution of its creation and manufacture pretty much guarantee that there will always be security holes. Any computer network is as secure as its weakest link, and one unpatched computer is all it takes to let in the bad guys.

So who hacked Google? Writers have been pointing out that there are many people and groups who could benefit from successfully hacking those Gmail accounts. Google's competitors in China would certainly benefit if Gmail seemed insecure, and for that matter Google's competitors outside China would also benefit. Google has been getting steadily bigger and its reach into new markets and technologies is astounding. As it moves more people into the cloud computing realm the market for free-standing individual software goes down.

Already anyone with a decent internet connection can avoid buying any software and still be productive. Google even has a free operating system for you, and it isn't alone. How do you stop the Google juggernaut? If people's faith in the security and stability of Google's applications is compromised, what will happen?

Google has a lot to lose in this whole hacking scandal, and many people and groups benefit from its loss. For us end-users the moral of the story is simple: no electronic communication is safe from prying eyes. Even strong encryption is only as secure as its password, which can be obtained by cleverness, deception or stealth in many cases. We can only be secure from casual trespassers, not unlike a locked house. As with a locked house, our online financial transactions can be burgled. We have insurance for both since neither can ever be completely secure.

I take reasonable precautions, patching my software and keeping my anti-virus software up to date. I also don't wander around in bad internet neighborhoods. I have still been a victim of cyber theft, which I only discovered by checking my credit card statements. I know that the IT staff can read my mail, so I don't send anything I don't want read. My greatest risk is an unplanned "reply all." We are probably better off thinking of the internet as a party-line phone, and using it accordingly.

So who hacked Google? It doesn't matter, and no one can ever know for sure anyway. If Google decides not to compete in China that is their business decision. Some people got a wake-up call from the event, and that may be a good thing for all of us.

Neutrals who aren't

2009-09-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

I've been blogging about neutrals who aren't neutral at "http://wp.me/pupza-d"

Divorce without war

2009-04-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

Divorce is pretty common these days. Each year half as many people divorce as marry. While that creates a lot of marriages that last, it also means that many fail. Attorneys whose clients are contemplating marriage school them in divorce planning, just as attorneys whose clients are starting a business get assistance with bankruptcy planning as part of the package.

The vast majority of divorces in California, something like 85 percent, are untouched by attorneys. Not surprisingly, people who do not have a lot of assets look to other alternatives. One of the services I provide at the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies at Fresno Pacific University is divorce mediation, and most of my clients are hoping to save money by being cooperative. It usually works, and they also learn through the process how to cooperatively parent their children and deal with future financial issues. Having handled over 1,000 divorces as an attorney and mediator, I can help people avoid known pitfalls.

Divorces involving attorneys usually have two features in common: lots of assets and lots of conflict. Mediation is also just right for some of these folks, but many of them are so seriously conflicted that they feel the need for an advocate who will protect them. Some are not so conflicted, but one partner has a lot more information than the other, and the playing field is not level. Attorneys can play an important role in both types of cases, with or without mediation.

As hard as it may be to believe, attorneys do not enjoy working with highly conflicted, emotionally enmeshed divorce cases. Clients in these cases are often out to cause pain to the other party at any cost. In my own practice I decided my life would not include hurting people for money, and I moved into mediation and dropped litigation. Other lawyers are similarly motivated.

The result is a new field for attorneys: collaborative law. In collaborative law the lawyers and clients work together to find the best solution to the disputants' problems. Family law is a large area for collaborative lawyers, but it can be applied to any area of conflict. Rather than each lawyer/client team sneaking up on the other side, all business is done in a four-way conference where both clients and both attorneys are present. While helping their own client understand the situation, both attorneys are committed to crafting the best overall response to the problem. Win-lose is not an option. In each situation the result must be a win-win for the parties, and both attorneys are committed to it.

If a client decides that cooperation isn't working and that litigation is required, both collaborative attorneys are dismissed, along with any joint experts (accountants, appraisers, parenting coaches), and the clients must begin from scratch. This is part of the collaborative agreement, and is a powerful disincentive to refusing to cooperate.

Collaborative law can be a great money-saver, but that isn't the main motivation. The main motivation is going through the divorce process in a way that leaves both parties satisfied with the outcome, and able to collaborate in their relationships with the children.

There are many collaborative law groups around the country. In central California, Central Valley Collaborative Law Affiliates (http://collaborativelawyers.org) provides family law support and is expanding beyond that. The International Academy of Collaborative Practice (http://collaborativepractice.com/) brings all the collaborative law groups together. There is a way to handle divorce, or other legal issues, without war. As a mediator and member of Central Valley Collaborative Law Affiliates, I support these groups, and wish them well in the cases appropriate for their services.

(This article first appeared in Fresno Pacific University's "Scholars Speak" at http://www.fresno.edu/scholars_speak/duane_ruth_heffelbower/02_12_2007.asp )

Listening to art

2009-03-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

Last night Chris Janzen the tactile artist/musician and Jesse Nathan the poet performed their piece “Dinner” at Mennonite Community Church. The venue was suitable for family and friends and it was a good couple of hours.

The piece is a mix of Chris’s experimental music made with various synthesizers, a guitar and string base, Chris’s collages, and Jesse’s poetry. All of it comes at you at once. I liked the overall effect and everyone in the audience, including our not quite eleven year-old granddaughter, stayed engaged. But how to describe a gallery display/poetry reading/concert?

Neuroscientists have studied the ability to multi-task, and it appears that there is no such thing as focusing on more than one thing at a time. Those who multi-task well are those adept at switching their attention among several things in rapid succession. The receptionist with a typing project would be an example of someone quickly shifting from typing to answering the phone to greeting a guest. A teenager texting while listening to music, watching television and doing homework could be another example.

“Dinner” demanded multi-tasking by the audience unusual for a performance. An orchestra asks the listener to hear the overall sonic experience while focusing on a theme in different instrumental sections sequentially. A rock concert creates a soundscape with moving focus and visual elements that don’t require any focus. An art display lets you look at a work in totality and then to move your focus around the piece. Looking at one of Chris’s collages on the web is like that. You can see the whole piece or magnify a portion.

At “Dinner” the visual focus moves from the projected collage image to the performers’ actions while the poetry, which requires continual focus, happens with simultaneous sounds that are difficult to predict and constantly grab away the listener’s focus. Paying attention to my body I became aware that the sounds created a good deal of anxiety which resulted in hearing the poetry and seeing the collages as more menacing than when I view the collages at leisure, or read the poems. Listening to the sounds in the safety of my bedroom does not generate the same anxiety as watching Chris produce them. The somewhat frenzied and unpredictable behavior that goes into producing the sounds creates an edge not there when they are simply heard.

My guess is that reading the poetry while the recorded sounds were played would be a completely different experience, and that the brain would simply sideline the sounds so that it could focus on the words. If Chris was making the sounds live while a recorded poet was played, I doubt that the poetry would make it through to the listener.

All this to say that the work was a worthwhile experience that has kept me thinking about it since. You can view, listen to and read the various bits at http://chrisjanzen.startlogic.com/.

Punishment without redemption

2009-02-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

Teaching is not just a two way street. Not only do students learn from the professor and the professor from the students, the professor also learns by hearing him or herself say things out loud. That is particularly true for extraverts who process information out in the open where everyone gets to play.

My class was working on the concept of restorative justice and how it is different from retributive justice. Retributive justice assigns guilt and punishes. Restorative justice identifies needs and responsibilities, and then provides an opportunity for those responsible to meet the needs.

The students were looking at the specific question of how an offender finds redemption, and which style of justice seeking would work best for that purpose. It was obvious that offenders who take responsibility for the harm they have caused and do what they can to meet the needs that result are more likely to find redemption.

I heard myself say “punishment without redemption is a waste of time.” As I have thought more about it that saying continues to sound true. What is the purpose of punishment if not to let a person pay their debt to society and be let back in? That is not how it works. These days a person who is punished carries that burden of guilt for the rest of their lives. A fortunate few are able to reintegrate with society and live productive lives. Our system creates a permanent underclass of the formerly incarcerated.

Punishment without redemption is not only a waste of time, but of valuable human resources which are permanently set aside. Since 1 out of every 100 adult Americans is currently incarcerated, and at present rates, according to the US Department of Justice, one in fifteen Americans will serve time in prison, this wasteful way of doing things is unsupportable.

We need to re-connect punishment and redemption. Without including a path to redemption, punishment is a waste.

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Duane Ruth-Heffelbower teaches in the criminology and restorative justice studies program at Fresno Pacific University.

I thought about it

2009-02-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Carter confessed to an interviewer that he had committed adultery in his heart. Fortunately for Pres. Carter that is not a crime. Be careful what you think in this post 9/11 world. Sometimes the difference between thinking and doing is less than you expect. December 22, 2008 five Muslim men were convicted of conspiracy to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix, an army base near Philadelphia. They could be sentenced to life in prison.

The evidence in the case consisted mostly of recorded conversations and testimony by two informants who were paid to infiltrate this terrorist cell and gather evidence. The main informant was a legal immigrant who had served time for bank fraud, been arrested for fighting with a neighbor and had filed bankruptcy.

A conviction for conspiracy requires more than just talk, of course. You have to do something in furtherance of the plan. Two actions were alleged in this case. The men purchased assault weapons through the informants, who got them from the FBI, and practiced shooting them in the Pocono Mountains. The other action was scouting nearby military bases. Fort Dix was the preferred target since the father of one of the conspirators owned a business that delivered pizza to the base.

Talking about an attack, acquiring weapons and checking out targets sounds pretty dangerous. That is what you would do if you were going on a suicide mission to kill soldiers on their own base. The jury deliberated 38 hours and rejected counts of attempted murder. It sounds like the FBI did a good job following up on the lead they received from a Circuit City clerk who called after one of the men had him transfer video of a shooting session by men shouting jihadist slogans to DVD. Heads-up police work saved the day.

The problem here is what the evidence did not show. The prosecution conceded that the men had no plan for carrying out the attack. They were unhappy about the actions of the US government, talked about it with their friends, and shot assault rifles at a range in the woods. A lot of patriotic Americans do the same. The second amendment right to bear arms is partly in furtherance of the claim of the Declaration of Independence that “. . .whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government. . . .”

The other big thing the evidence did not show was that these men were willing to die in the process of killing soldiers. The defendants included a cab driver, a convenience store clerk and three brothers who owned a roofing business. One thing we have learned about suicide jihadists is that they don’t go to work every day while they are planning their attack. The norm, to the extent one can determine such a thing, seems to be that suicide jihadists come from financially better off families and are recruited, trained and equipped by organizations. In the Fort Dix case there was no evidence of connection to any organization. The only help they had was the two informants. There was no one to celebrate their martyrdom.

The question here is whether or not we want our government to protect us by recruiting, equipping and training jihadists using informants who have nothing to lose and much to gain by producing defendants. It would have been terrible if these men had succeeded in entering Fort Dix and committing mass murder. Maybe it is worth wrongly imprisoning some big-mouthed malcontents to avoid atrocities like that.

The FBI ended the investigation and arrested the defendants after the purchase of automatic weapons. There was no plan for the attack yet, but one can assume that the FBI did not want to risk having weapons it provided used in any criminal activity, causing them to wrap the case up.

When I teach conspiracy law my students are always amazed at how little it takes to make a case. Talk and an action in support of the talk will do it. Cases usually come down to who the jury believes, not whether the necessary legal elements are present.

Had any murderous thoughts lately? Be careful who you share them with, particularly if your friend offers to get you a deal on the weapons.
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This post has been published by Fresno Pacific University as a Scholars Speak article at http://www.fresno.edu/scholars_speak/duane_ruth_heffelbower/01_07_09.asp

Peacemaking

2007-04-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Papua Gospel celebration

152 years ago the Gospel came to Papua through Dutch missionaries. They came from a small island to the Texas-sized island of New Guinea. If you look at the island on a map it looks like a large bird sitting on the ground facing west. The west half is Indonesia and the east half is the independent Papua New Guinea. The missionaries came to what is commonly called the Bird’s Head, to what is now the city of Manokwari. Mennonite Central Committee has had a presence there for most of the last fifty years, and I have spent a lot of time there.

Papuans fall into two religious categories, Christian and animist. The Christians, of course, retain many animist ways of understanding their world since many live in stone age conditions.

Each year Manokwari has a celebration of the coming of the Gospel. This requires two white men to row a boat ashore wearing 1855 outfits. For most of the last fifty years Mennonite Central Committee workers have been the only white men available, so they have participated regularly.

The Dutch missionaries row to the shore, debark, and walk to their designated spots. Speeches are made, then a tribal chief in native costume consisting mostly of Bird of Paradise feathers runs toward the Dutch missionaries with traditional weapons of war, a bow and arrows. The island was a cannibalistic culture where every stranger who entered a tribe’s domain was killed. This culture resulted in one sixth of the world’s ethnic diversity occurring on one island. Of the 6,000 languages on earth, 1,000 are on the island of New Guinea.

The tribal chief runs to the missionaries, kneels before them, and breaks his arrows. This demonstrates that the coming of the Gospel ended inter-tribal warfare on the island.

The Prince of Peace is our peace, and has brought peace all over the world. What if Christians made a simple pact not to kill each other? The world would be a very different place. At the name of Jesus, let every knee bow.

Peacemaking

2007-03-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Peacemaking
When is it time to leave Iraq?

Since the invasion of Iraq four years ago I have believed that it is improper to destroy a country’s ability to police itself then leave. That is no longer my view of the situation in Iraq. Despite the efforts of US and coalition forces, the country has devolved into civil war. It is a rare day when less than 100 civilians are killed and many more wounded. If that is not a civil war I would hate to see one.

Sunnis seem to be better armed and organized, but they are a small minority with a history of oppressing their more numerous neighbors. When the tables are turned that is a recipe for genocide. The United States is not in a position to prevent whatever happens. It can influence the course of events in the short term, but everyone has always known that the Americans will go home. The only question is when. That leaves American troops in the unenviable position of giving their mental health, body parts and lives for no ultimate purpose. This is unconscionable.

It is time to acknowledge that the Iraqis must make their own political settlement, and that Iran will have significant influence. When we brought down Saddam we guaranteed that ultimate result. We are witnessing the definition of the limits of American military power, and the end of America’s imperialist agenda. The new era has begun, and it is time for America’s political leaders to accept the change.

regime change

2006-11-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

The elections just concluded have changed the American political landscape. For someone involved in peacemaking the big news is that the elections are being seen by everyone, in retrospect, as a referendum on the Iraq war. Donald Rumsfeld has resigned, indicating that the administration understands the vote count in that way. The President is now a lame duck with a hostile legislative branch. That is quite a change in two days.

What does it all mean for issues of war and peace?

Being the opposition party allows one to complain and cast aspersions on the character of those one opposes. What happens when the opposition suddenly becomes the majority and has to govern? Speaker to be Pelosi ran against the war, but never did offer a plan for ending it. What is the right thing to do in a situation like this? The United States military destroyed Iraq's ability to police itself, let alone defend itself from attack. If we were to simply leave now the incipient civil war and the adventurism of neighboring countries would have free reign. Those areas of Iraq with strong ethnic majorities would seek to create their own states. All that prevents those things now is the US military presence.

The question remains whether the US should be the decisionmaker in this case. That area of the world has been a rough place for millennia. Empires have come and gone. Tribal warfare has continued through all that time. The US invasion is little more than a blip on a very long chart, and that chart only includes the idea of democracy in the last couple of years, scarcely noticeable on the chart. The US military is playing the role of a guest in the country now that there is a democratically elected government.

The basic question is whether there ought to be an Iraq. It is a recent invention, and one that was never accepted by all its citizens. If it is US policy to maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq, we will be there for a long time. If we are comfortable with the Balkanization of Iraq, we can leave. It will be interesting to see how America's new rulers choose between those two.

Hostages and executions

2005-12-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

Hostages and executions
Today we are waiting to see what happens to the four Christian Peacemaker Teams workers who were taken hostage in Iraq. Their captors said they would kill them yesterday if thousands of Iraqis were not release from prison. There has been no word since the deadline passed. An outpouring of support from Muslim clerics and many others around the world for these peace activists is wonderful to see. Their good work in Iraq and other places is well known. Still, we wait.

At the same time we are waiting to see whether Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will allow the death sentence on Stanley “Tookie” Williams to be carried out. His is the last word. There has been an outpouring of support for clemency in this case. Questions linger about the propriety of this conviction for crimes Williams still denies committing, and his good anti-gang work from death row has caught the attention of many.

These cases are completely different in one way, but in others they are the same. An elected government is deciding whether to execute Williams, while a self-appointed militia is deciding the fate of the peacemakers in Iraq. Each has the power to execute, however that power was gained, and in both cases the choice is both arbitrary and political. The persons wielding the power of life and death will put a lot of thought into how their choice will affect themselves and those close to them. If the governor decides to let the sentence be carried out and riots erupt, how will that affect his political future? If he decides to commute the sentence and his conservative base deserts him, what happens then? In Iraq the hostage takers need to weigh how difficult it will be to survive if they carry out the execution. Will they be hunted down by all factions? Would they be better off bowing to the clear will of Sunni and Shia leaders and accepting that these peacemakers deserve to live?

The choice in either case is political, not about law. Is it any wonder that many in the world have trouble telling the difference between the actions of Islamist extremists and the American government? Both kill many innocent people in the name of their cause in an effort to serve their interests. Both execute wrongdoers. Both claim high moral values. Both claim to be in the right. Both believe the other to be in league with Satan.

Jesus suggested that we not try to take the splinter out of another’s eye until we have removed the log from our own. Scottish poet Robert Burns put it this way: “Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion.” The more energy we put into seeing ourselves as others see us, the better able we will be to make the changes in our own behavior that encourage others to make changes as well.

Redemption

2005-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

Execution ends the chance for redemptionVictims cannot heal
By Duane Ruth-HeffelbowerNovember 29, 2005
The upcoming execution date for Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang, has generated a lot of commentary on the subject of killing people. Some think killing people is appropriate in certain circumstances, like war and the death penalty. Others think killing is never appropriate. Both sides bolster their arguments with clippings from their sacred texts, whatever those may be. The one thing killing does is prevent redemption in this life. So the question really is “will we permit redemption?”
Most of us have experienced redemption in daily life. We do something bad that hurts another person, confess to them, make amends and then set about rebuilding trust by behaving better. The world’s religions frame the theology of this process differently, but the behavior looks the same no matter how one understands what goes on internally or spiritually. It is a universal human process that benefits everyone involved. Should we allow something like this, or should we forever prevent it by killing the wrongdoer?
Judging only by the news reports, the families of William’s victims don’t think he has gone through the steps of redemption to their satisfaction. He has done some good and useful things that have endeared him to some, but has not confessed or made amends to them. Should we prevent him from doing those things by killing him?
Those who study victims to better learn how to meet their needs recognize that victims follow unique yet predictable patterns in their healing process. The timetable can be different and the steps rearranged, but those who heal well have some things in common. One of the most helpful things in the healing process is for the offender to go through the steps of redemption. The victim has to be ready and the offender has to be sincere, but when those things come together it is beautiful to watch. Pennsylvania has an official program to make this process possible for murderers and the families of their victims, and Californians are working to make it possible here.
Should we allow victims to seek healing in this way, or should we prevent it by killing the offender? That is really the question when we discuss the death penalty. Would it be better to work at offering victims and offenders another option?
Three of the world’s great religions honor a murderer, Moses. He fled to escape justice, and some would say he found redemption. How would the world be different if the Egyptians had caught him as he fled? The issue is complex, but death ends the discussion and closes off all other possibilities.
Also available at
http://fresno.edu/scholarsspeak/duane_ruth-heffelbower/11-29-2005.php

Duane Ruth-Heffelbower

2005-12-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

Duane Ruth-Heffelbower

There are several groups that send unarmed civilians into harm’s way to promote peace. Four members of one of those organizations, Christian Peacemaker Teams, have just been abducted in Iraq. Their captors threaten to kill them if a list of demands is not met. The organization is devoted to “getting in the way” between groups that are killing each other.

Not everyone knows that I was the recording secretary at the organizational meeting of Christian Peacemaker Teams over 20 years ago, having heard Ron Sider’s Mennonite World Conference speech at Strasbourg in 1984 that gave impetus to the creation of CPT. His premise was that Christians who oppose war should be willing to endure the same risks as soldiers if their witness is to be meaningful.

In those days the kidnapping and killing of Americans was unthinkable, and gave great power to accompaniment by CPT and other pacifist organizations. I also had the privilege of participating in the creation of the Nonviolent Peace Force, which is facing the same problem. The days when Americans could roam the world with impunity are gone, thanks in large part to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Killing Americans is no longer taboo, and has become a way to reach the world stage.

Those of us Americans who insert ourselves into difficult situations around the world need to know that we are wonderful targets of opportunity for those who want to speak to the world. Capturing and killing us is the currency necessary to be legitimate on the world stage. How does that change our behavior? What used to be righteous is now downright dangerous. When we decide to intervene in a situation we have to first decide whether the cause is one for which we want to die, and we have to be ready to accept an unpleasant death. This is a change.

I have been in the way of violent people a number of times, and each time my naïveté and status as an American have kept me safe. Those who wanted to kill me were deterred by the image of a carrier battle group steaming into their waters with thousands of Marines and hundreds of aircraft ready to make them pay for their arrogance. Americans have no idea how powerful they have been because of this self-censoring by opponents of America who feared our power. Killing an American was a dangerous, self-destructive act, until recently. I have walked fearlessly on five continents, largely due to the aura of power even a pacifist American exudes.

That time is past. Now Americans are a ticket to the world news business. If there is no American victim a story is downplayed. If you have an American hostage, all satellites beam your story around the world. Being American is no longer a shield, but has become a bull’s-eye for those who want to be heard. The premise upon which accompaniment organizations are based has changed. Now it is unsafe to stand by an American, rather than recent days when to stand by an American was to be safe. The world has changed, and our response must change. The day when an American could wander the globe with impunity are past. How does a Christian behave in this new world? How do organizations that bank on the former way of doing things shift?

A belated thanks

2005-10-23T18:26:00.000-07:00

A belated thanks –
In December 2003 I traveled from California to Peshawar, Pakistan. I carried onto the plane my usual travel rig of a carry-on roller and my Lands' End double-sided computer attaché. The PowerPoint presentation I had ready for the conference in Peshawar was in my computer. This rig has served me through many states and countries. It was a good thing I had only carry-on luggage since I missed flights in Dubai and Karachi. When the plane landed in Islamabad it was dark, and they rolled up front and rear staircases for debarking. I went down the back stairs in nearly complete darkness, holding my carry-on in one hand and the Lands' End attaché in the other. In the dark I missed the last step and both pieces of luggage went flying. My pants tore, my knee was a bloody mess, the scar lasting to this day, and people gathered up my luggage. This was awkward since a red-carpet welcome was planned by my hosts. I was a bit too red. After treatment by paramedics I arrived at my hotel and booted up the computer. It was fine. The knee was still a mess a week later as we traveled up the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan and took several weeks to heal. I continue to use the same computer and the same travel rig two years later. We leave again in two days. Thank you, Lands' End!

Finding your bunny

2005-09-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

How to find your bunny
A few months back we acquired a rabbit. It is a show rabbit not meant to be eaten, and is pretty cute. Our granddaughter likes it a lot. We let it run around our yard, and its white fur with brown spots makes it look a lot like a living soccer ball as it bounces around. Unfortunately, a bored bunny can be a bad bunny, and last week it found a spot where it could escape the fence. So the rabbit is gone and the 7 year-old is distraught. It took us a week to get to the stage of putting up signs on light poles. Granddaughter and I went around taping them to the poles. As we were walking along a neighbor who had seen one of the first signs drove up and asked if we were looking for a rabbit. He had seen it in the yard across the street from him, two doors down from us. He had stopped pruning his trees and come looking for us to tell us. We searched and found nothing.

About dusk, rabbit active time, we went looking again and there she was in the next door front yard. The three of us surrounded the bush and she was reclaimed. Hooray! A neighbor whose name I still don’t know went out of his way to reunite us with our rabbit. That is really special these days, and makes me long for the days growing up in Kansas when I knew everyone in a two-block radius from my house.

The rabbit is back in her hutch scarfing pellets and Timothy hay. The hole under the gate is blocked, and all’s right with the world, at least right here. It takes me back to simpler times before central air conditioning, when we knew the people around us. If it weren’t for the lost rabbit, and the lost kitten before, I would have no idea who lived in the nearby houses. Maybe that should change.

far from perfect storm

2005-09-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

A busy summer and forgotten password make for bigger than usual blank spots in a blog. This being September 11 thoughts automatically turn to the events of four years ago, but also turn unbidden to Hurricane Katrina and the events of the last couple of weeks. People don't make hurricanes, at least not directly, so we don't blame the storm for the trouble it causes. The 9-11-01 events were caused directly by people, so we do blame them and those who helped them for the trouble they caused. After that, the two events start to look more alike. In both events the news was all about the failure of the government at all levels to deal with an unprecedented catastrophe, and how that incompetence resulted in people dying. I certainly don't disagree. What I disagree with is the notion that any government should be prepared to deal with an unprecedented catastrophe.

When Joseph (the biblical one) interpreted Pharaoh's dream to say that 7 fat years would be followed by 7 lean years the government of Egypt took it seriously and heavily taxed the people so that enough grain would be available for 7 years of drought. The result was the government owning the whole country by the time the drought broke. This works well in a monarchy, but would not be well received in a democratic republic. If the government of New Orleans had taxed the people sufficiently to build defenses against a category 5 hurricane they would have been hooted and booted out of office. If the air transportation system had been designed to prevent the 9-11-01 attacks, no one would be flying and Amtrack would be flush.

It's all well and good to try assessing blame and rooting out failures after an unprecedented catastrophe, but we need to remember that it was unprecedented. No politician would have been able to sell the necessary cost of preventing it.

The response afterwards is a different story. There we can identify all sorts of failures that were the result of bad planning. Relying on cell phones for communication after a disaster that will surely wipe out the cell system is probably unwise. Banks in New Orleans are now trying to figure out how to contact customers who have no phone or forwarding address. The forms people fill out don't usually include an out-of-area contact since people don't expect their city to disappear. That will probably change. We learn from these things, and the next big hurricane to hit a major American city will probably see a better response.

We are always reacting to unprecedented events since, by definition, no one ever thought they would happen or couldn't muster the political will to prepare for them. The now discredited arms race with the Soviet Union was an example of building defenses against something that never came. People in the information age are a lot less willing to buy such a response if they don't believe the danger is imminent. Let's not demand a response from government or anyone if we aren't willing to pay the price of preparedness. I am probably a lot like you, I don't want to pay for a response that may never be needed. Just before criticizing the government's response, try to imagine having paid for the preparation necessary to respond better. Would you have been willing to pay?

Are you willing to pay to fortify all gulf coast and Atlantic seaboard cities against a category 5 hurricane? How about paying for preparing all California cities for an 8.3 earthquake like the one that destroyed San Francisco in 1906? Tornadoes are a terrible problem in the Midwest; shouldn’t we have hardened facilities able to resist them? Are you willing to pay for securing all transportation systems from a terrorist attack? Of course not. I, too, like to eat in addition to paying taxes.

It is time to learn what we can from these disasters, and to avoid using them as a platform for inappropriate attacks on those charged with preventing or responding to them when we did not provide the necessary resources. No government ever has the resources to respond promptly and unerringly to an unprecedented catastrophe. Let’s not pretend that they should.

the United States doesn't invade other countries

2005-05-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

I was doing a workshop on conflict for 60 or so teachers at a Jr. College/trade school the other day. We were talking about how one can dispel fear in the other party that prevents them from being cooperative. After all, if I am afraid of you, it will be difficult for me to cooperate with you in any meaningful way. The example of North Korea and its quest for nuclear weapons came up. "So why do you suppose they want nukes?" I asked. The responses tended toward "they want to be big stuff in the world." "Has the United States ever invaded a country that had nuclear weapons?" I asked. Consternation blossomed in the room. Everyone knew the US has never invaded a country with nuclear weapons. "Do you think they might be afraid of us?" I asked. The general response was "No way, the United States never invades anyone. How can they not see that?"

These teachers haven't been paying much attention to all the little invasions that don't spend much time on the front page, not to mention the big ones that do. They seem to have missed Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Panama, Grenada and a host of others. Those who haven't kept track might want to pick up the book The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power by Max Boot.

Yes, they might be afraid of us.

Peacemaking

2005-05-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

It's our granddaughter's 7th birthday. That makes one think. How dare she be so old? The life of human beings goes in cycles. One of the problems we have had lately is in messing up those cycles. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the couple with a baby carriage. How often does that happen these days?

Not to be a curmudgeon, but people who get the sequence out of order are making a mess of American society. Children who don't know their father, or know their father and that he is not the fellow sleeping with mom, are confused. If we want successful children, we have to show them successful parents. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the couple with a baby carriage.

As I work with young offenders and their families, the overriding issue is that the family forgot the poem: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the couple with a baby carriage.

Valentine's Day bombings

2005-02-14T22:48:00.000-08:00

One of the beauties of travel is becoming familiar with new places and people. This age of bombings changes how it feels to know so many places. First thing this morning was the news of a bombing that killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, and an email from our friends in Beirut whose doors were blown open by the blast saying they were ok. Then the news of the three explosions in the Philippines. The bombing site in Manila looked familiar, and so it was. I was there not long ago. Likewise the site in Davao. I have not been to the bombing site in General Santos City because the workshop I was to lead there moved to Davao after threats from Abu Sayyaf, the group claiming responsibility for these latest bombings. The world is a much smaller place than we sometimes realize. The danger of relationships around the world is that the world news suddenly becomes local. Yesterday we had email with pictures from Jeff, our former Indonesia colleague, letting us know how it is going in Banda Aceh recreating water systems and latrines after the tsunami. We are tied together by our relationships in ways that make complacency impossible, and which tug at our hearts in ways the world news didn't 30 years ago. After a day like this one, ignorance is tempting.

The latest in Iraq

2005-02-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

When one invades a country, overthrows its rulers and then disbands its police force, obligations are created. As a pacifist I would like nothing better than to have the US immediately withdraw from Iraq, but to do so would be cowardly at best. What we destroyed must be replaced, and this specifically includes a police force. The elections are a step in the right direction, moving repsonsibility and authority to Iraq's citizens, but until a proper police force can be recruited and trained it would be irresponsible for the US to leave. Mennonites remember vividly what happened after the Russian revolution when bandit gangs controlled the country. For the US to visit that on Iraq would be terrible.